Television and radio broadcasting technologies are very well suited for providing content to audience (i.e. viewers and listeners) on a mass scale. Especially in developing countries where opportunities for entertainment are limited, televisions and radios provide the largest audience for the entertainment media. Businesses are also heavily relying upon radio and television broadcastings to advertise their products in the most cost effective way. Government entities also use radio and television broadcasts to reach as many people as possible in conveying information or warning of an impending dangerous condition.
While broadcasting is very effective in disseminating program content, it is less effective in maintaining contact with the audience and soliciting feedback therefrom. For example, interactions with the audience are important for certain broadcast situations where feedback in the form of voting and comments are required from the audience. Existing methods for interacting with the audience includes using interactive TV, SMS or internet.
Interactive TV uses digital television broadcasting technology. A broadcast standard such as the DVB-RCS provides a return channel as a mechanism for viewers to send feedback to the broadcasters. While this method of obtaining feedback from the viewers is intuitive, its use is restricted to only viewers with the appropriate interactive TV system which is not widely deployed due to its high cost of ownership comparing to the conventional television set. Further disadvantages associating with interactive TV include multiple viewers watching the same TV set not able to give different feedbacks and the system not able to support answers to open ended questions. This is because the answers are typically made through a remote controller which is good for making a selection using the 0 to 9 numerical buttons.
For feedback using SMS, the broadcasters typically announce the question over the broadcast channels (i.e. either through TV or radio broadcast) along with the response options to be sent to a specified number. The audience is expected to enter their responses and send an SMS to the specified number. The broadcasters can also choose to have multiple numbers for different answers. This method, which makes use of the widely available cellular networks and cell phones, is successfully deployed in many parts of the world for obtaining audience participation in TV and radio programs. However, this method suffers from drawbacks including: (i) cumbersome entering the text message using the cell phone keypad; (ii) difficulties remembering the response options and specified numbers; (iii) audience is distracted from the programming while entering the message on the cell phone; and (iv) any erroneous formatting of the entry, which is a common mistake, makes the response illegible and in some cases void.
Making use of the Internet for interacting with the audience is another method. Occasionally, broadcasters solicit feedback from the audience by inviting them to visit the broadcasters' websites or through electronic mails (emails). This method is most suited for soliciting feedback comments as oppose to YES or NO answers or answers to multiple choice questions. However, since the audience is expected to provide the feedback only after the broadcasting, it leads to substantial reduction in the number of audience members who would go through the trouble of logging onto the Internet and provide such feedback.
Therefore, it is desirable to provide systems and methods for soliciting feedback from the audience addressing at least some of the limitations described above.